A CAMPAIGN to raise funds for a permanent memorial to Brechin’s father of radar, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, is to be formally launched today.

Despite the impact his work had on the outcome of the second world war, the only reminder of the famous radar pioneer’s local roots has been a small plaque on the wall of his birthplace in Union Street.

But the Watson-Watt Society of Brechin, a registered charity established last year, intends marking his life and work with a more fitting £50,000 memorial in his home town.

An international fund-raising appeal will be officially launched at a cheese and wine party in the Mechanics Institute hosted by the City of Brechin Civic Trust.

Arguably the most distinguished Brechiner of the 20th century, Watson-Watt was born in 1892.

He showed an early interest in science, spending many hours experimenting in the workshop of his father’s joinery business.

He won a scholarship to Brechin High and later to University College, Dundee, where he took a degree in electrical engineering.

At the start of the first world war he accepted a post in the government meteorological office, where he was asked to find a way to forecast lightning and thunderstorms to warn aviators. During these studies he realised aircraft could also be detected—he had discovered the science underlying radar.

The pioneering work on the detection of aircraft by radio methods undertaken by Watson-Watt resulted in the design and installation of a chain of radar stations along the east and south coasts of England in time for the outbreak of the second world war. This system provided the vital advance information that helped the RAF win the Battle of Britain and was essential in the Battle of the Atlantic and critical in the D-Day invasion.

He was knighted in 1942.

In the 1950s he moved to Canada and later to the USA, and then returned to the UK. He and his wife lived in London in winter and had a summer home in Pitlochry, where both were buried—Dame Kathryn in 1971 and Watson-Watt two years later.

“With our website now up and running and leaflets printed, we are now ready to make appeals for donations not just locally but internationally,” said Dr Robert Martin, chairman of the Watson-Watt Society.

The party will be opened by TV personality Andrea Brymer, also a native of the burgh.